Bernanke's frugal PR push

Even on the public relations efforts he has been making, Bernanke declined further comment.

Bernanke’s not just used to talking like a professor. He’s used to students who are able — and willing — to listen. What’s radical for the Fed can look timid to voters accustomed to the hashed out news coverage they get about politics.

With the Obama White House and Republican-majority House locked in a stalemate, the Fed is now the sole source of stimulating the weak economy — and caught in the partisan fight. That’s a tricky line to walk when most Americans don’t grasp the intricacies of what the Fed does and how its policies reverberate through the economy.

“They need to be careful about their perception as a political actor in town,” said Tony Fratto, a former Bush administration spokesman who supports the outreach efforts.“Ben is not really a creature of Washington. The majority of his career has been studying and researching monetary policy and not operating in Washington.”

Bernanke has acted: The Fed has committed to keeping a key government interest rate near zero through late 2014 and previously injected hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy to buy long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. The goal: Letting homeowners save money by refinancing their mortgages while lowering rates on corporate bonds to spark investment and raising stock prices in the hopes of what economists call a “virtuous cycle.”

Meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee — which sets interest rates — are closed to the public, with minutes released three weeks afterward. Given the economic situation, though, Bernanke felt strongly that staying behind-the-scenes wouldn’t be enough.

He didn’t hire image consultants or start poll-testing his messages — Bernanke personally spends six to eight hours fine-tuning each of his major addresses, and depends on informal airport encounters while waiting to board flights for much of his public feedback. But he is determined to make the institution more straightforward and engaged.

Donald Kohn, the vice chairman under Bernanke from 2006 to 2010, said the “very unusual economic situation of a financial crisis, deep recession and slow recovery” increased the urgency to open up the Fed for average Americans.

“It’s not surprising in these circumstances that the public doesn’t understand as well as it might what the Fed is doing and why,” Kohn said.

On the contrary, the Fed has become a political punching bag. Rep. Ron Paul, author of the 2009 New York Times best-seller “End the Fed,” made Bernanke attacks central to his campaign, and pledges to fire Bernanke — or worse, in the case of Rick Perry — quickly became de rigueur for Republican presidential candidates. They’re not alone: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried unsuccessfully to bully the Fed against taking additional stimulus measures last fall, saying in a letter that “further intervention by the Federal Reserve could exacerbate current problems or further harm the U.S. economy.”